WWF Assails World Bank Dam Project in Laos
Date: 04-Apr-05
Country: SWITZERLAND
In a statement, the global conservation group also charged that the World Bank had "never provided a convincing and rational explanation of the need for the additional electricity produced" and earmarked for Thailand.
On Thursday, the bank's board agreed to provide as much as $270 million in funding and risk guarantees for the Nam Theun 2 hydroelectric dam being built by Electricite de France and two Thai companies in cooperation with the Communist-run government.
"WWF is particularly concerned that the NT2 dam, which involves a major diversion of water from the Nam Theun River to the Xe Bang Fai River, will disrupt the farming and fishing activities of up to 130,000 people," it said.
It called for thorough assessment of hydropower projects in the Mekong basin, which has more than 1,300 species of fish, making it a "biodiversity hotspot" and major food source for 50 million people.
Wild elephants, already endangered, will be threatened by the flooding of 40 percent of the Nakai Plateau in southern Laos, according to the Swiss-based WWF.
"We fear that this dam rather than reducing poverty will only increase human misery and environmental degradation," said Ute Collier of WWF's dams and water infrastructure programme.
Sales to neighbouring Thailand of 95 percent of the power that the dam will generate will be a key income source for landlocked Laos, a country of 5.6 million people with per capita annual income of just $320, according to the World Bank.
But WWF said that electricity supply in Thailand currently outstripped demand and even with significantly higher demand over the next decade, additional needs could be met more sustainably through energy efficiency measures and small-scale renewable energy projects.
The dam is expected to generate 1,070 megawatts of power beginning in 2010.
